LOCATION: (lat. 28°21'19.2" N., long. 82°41'55.5" W.)
Palm Sink is located in Pasco County, FL, it is visible on the West side of U.S.19 just a couple hundred feet south of the intersection of 19 and Sea Ranch Rd. in Hudson.
DESCRIPTION:
This has always been a popular dive site due to it's proximity to US 19 and ease of access. It usually looks stagnant and uninviting though the addition of a fountain did help for a while. The roadside access made the sink a favorite dumping ground for cars and other stolen goods. The property surrounding the sink has been improved in the past few years, I expect that it's only a matter of time before access is limited. Until then, the easiest entry point is just to the right of the big Oak tree.
DIVELOG:
After tying off our guideline, we descended through the algae filled surface water, by 15ft the water temperature dropped to 68 degrees. Continuing down the bottleneck of this classic hourglass shaped sinkhole we passed through a sight distorting combination of halocline/thermocline, at 50ft fresh and salt water were mixing and the water temperature was increasing again. Hydrogen sulfide was also present but not as bad as I had expected. Reaching the debris mound at 90ft the visibility had increased to 50ft+ so we made our way down the slope to meet the wall at a depth of 145ft. We circled around the bottom and checked out some cracks that appeared to be a source of the clearer water feeding this sink. There was plenty of junk to see along the way like cans, concrete culverts,and a washing machine.... this is not a bad dive for free!
